A Little Bit Langston starts off in your head. No, YOUR head, the head of an LA teenager who has a learning disability and a demanding, self-absorbed mother and a bubbling volcano of feelings for his best friend. Or at least the book starts in the head of someone you love. James, the main character, is so engaging, so immediately present on the page, that I was willing to follow him right down the rabbit hole, no questions asked.

And it is quite a warren down there. I don’t want to spoil too much, but let’s just say if you’re a fan of alien technology, secret government agencies, and gifted young people who can probably kill you with their brains, you won’t be disappointed. Not to mention if you’re a fan of Langston Hughes, the Langston of the title. The author doesn’t use any excerpts of Hughes’ actual work; instead he paraphrases, or in some instances inserts original lines that are clearly intended to remind the reader of famous Hughes poems. But the spirit of the poet is there--in the multifaceted identities of the main characters, in the brave actions of young men who get beaten for being gay, in the expansively hopeful feeling of the story as a whole.

The plot fits into the classic “chosen one” style of tale. James appears at first to have trouble reading at school, but a bizarre talent quickly emerges when he begins to channel the writing of long-dead poet Montgomery Langston (Langston Hughes). At the same time, his electricity-related superpower shows itself. After a period of being persecuted at school, and some harrowing real-world complications involving his best friend/love interest, Paul, James finds himself at a special academy for gifted teens like himself. Which is when the alien + conspiracy questions really kick into gear. I’m glad the author set us up for a sequel, because the busy, scheme-filled underworld he created is way too big for just one book.

I love a YA story where the superpowers appear at adolescence, where they overwhelm the character and then through the arc of the story he masters them. That’s what growing up feels like: channeling electricity with no control, destroying all the lightbulbs in the house, knowing for a fact that no one can understand your side of the story. Even though James’ demanding mother claims she always knew he was special, we see James changing into his true self on the page, as his feelings for Paul blossom and he discovers who he really is. In this case that’s pretty literal; James gets a big surprise when he finds out who his father is. Good YA science fiction stuff.

The love story isn’t center stage here, and that’s a big strength of the book. There’s plenty already going on in this story, and not all YA stories or coming-out stories have to be love stories. Another significant strength is Demcak’s skillful, barely-there handling of race and ethnicity. Way too much science fiction is, historically, way too white. That’s started to shift in recent years, but slowly. In A Little Bit Langston, the love interest, Paul, is Filipino, while James is white. Hardly anything is ever said about that difference between them, but Paul never has that insert-diversity-here feeling as a character. He’s three-dimensional, with a complex family and history of his own, and his journey toward loving James feels very earned. When we meet Lumen, another student at the special school, James expresses curiosity about her Korean heritage, but when the two turn out to be half-siblings, no one misses a beat, because these characters live so easily in a multicultural world.

Don’t miss out on A Little Bit Langston. I will be holding my breath until the sequel comes out.

“A Little Bit Langston” by Andrew Demcak

James has a pretty boring life. Sure, his mom is nuts, and also sort of interesting, but that’s par for the course for adults, who all seem a bit off. He’s in high school, but he still has problems with reading, and his best friend, Paul, seems to have a few problems as well. But people pretty much leave them alone, and all in all, he has nothing to worry about—just the average life of an average teenager. Until one day when he blacks out, and wakes up to find he’s written perfect copies of a dead poet’s greatest works… works he’s never seen before. On top of that, he starts zapping things with green electricity. Then things get weird, and he and his best friend have to face the facts: they aren’t your average teenagers anymore, and nothing’s going to ever be the same.

I don’t usually read young adult fiction—for many reasons—but I loved this book. I loved the two boys, James and Paul, and how their friendship turned into an adorable crush, and then into love. It had a very teenage boy feel—one scene in particular—and you’ll know the scene when you read it. It was perfect in characterizing their fragile love, and the forces that tried to keep them apart, creating a compelling story line.

I also liked the little secondary characterization details from James’s point of view: how poor Paul had to wear a helmet growing up, because his parents said his balance was off, and how Paul was always in front of James in line no matter where they went, and that was perfectly natural for both of them, or even how James’s mother kept saying he was destined for greatness… in that overly eccentric way of hers. Those details were incredibly beautiful and complete in how they showed the characters.

James and Paul are just “a little bit Langston”, and while that line is poetic in itself, I can also relate, because I’m just a little bit Langston too. The story, as well as these fantastic details, came off as more literary fiction than genre fiction, but then the world cracked open, and James and Paul were thrust into a crazy science fiction adventure, meeting new characters and creatures, and battling to save their lives, and maybe the entire world. Wow. Super good. Check it out.

Andrew Demcak has written much fiction, poetry, and other works, so if you favor a particular genre, I can assure you he has plenty to choose from. I can also assure you you’ll love it, and I’ll definitely be reading more.

Ghost Traces:

Andrew Demcak is an award-winning poet and novelist whose work has been widely published and anthologized both in print and on-line, and whose books have been featured by The American Library Association, Verse Daily, The Lambda Literary Foundation, The Best American Poetry blog, The Nervous Breakdown, and Poets/Artists. He was a *FINALIST* for the 2016 Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence in Poetry for his new book, Lazarus. About his latest Teen GLBTQ Sci-Fi Coming-Out novel, A Little Bit Langston, Kirkus Reviews raved "This book really ... takes its place in the marginalized-will-lead-us genre, as popularized by The Matrix and the X-Men franchises." His first Young Adult (YA) novel, Ghost Songs, was published March 13, 2014. His first literary novel, If There's A Heaven Above, was published January 5, 2013 by JMS Books, and was nominated by The American Library Association as an "Outstanding" novel for older Teens (17+). His first play, The Inevitable Crunch Factor, won the Cal Arts' New Playwrights Series and was cast and produced in a multi-week run. His fourth book of poetry, Night Chant, was published by Lethe Press. His other poetry books are: A Single Hurt Color, GOSS 183::Casa Menendez Press, 2010, Zero Summer, BlazeVOX [Books], NY, 2009 and his first poetry book, Catching Tigers in Red Weather, three candles press, 2007, which was selected by Joan Larkin to win the Three Candles Press Open Book Award.

He was a 2010 Finalist for The Crazyhorse Poetry Award. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Lambda Award, Thom Gunn Poetry Award, both the California and Northern California Book Awards, Best of the Web, and others. He has an M. F. A. in English/Creative Writing from St. Mary's College in Moraga, CA , where he studied with Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Michael Palmer, Carol Snow, Frank Bidart, Gary Snyder, Charles Wright, and Sharon Olds. Andrew is also a member of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, where he studied with Galway Kinnell, Richard Howard, and Lucille Clifton. His poems, including Young Man With iPod (Poetry Midwest, #13), are taught at Ohio State University as part of both its English 110.02 class, "The Genius and the Madman," and in its "American Poetry Since 1945" class. At the age of 23, Andrew published his first chapbook, The Psalms (Big 23 Press), which was favorably reviewed by Dr. Clifton Snider in the Small Press Review (issue 226, vol. 23, no. 11.)